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The Anatolia Reportages By Yaşar Kemal

The Anatolia Reportages By Yaşar Kemal

BEFORE YAŞAR KEMAL WROTE HIS ANATOLIA NOVELS, HE DESCRIBED THE REGION IN A SERIES OF ON-THE-SPOT REPORTAGES. THOSE REPORTAGES HAVE NOW BEEN PUBLISHED AS A BOOK TO MARK THE 60TH YEAR SINCE THEY WERE WRITTEN.

His reportages were what first propelled Yaşar Kemal onto Turkey’s literary scene. In those days, when the reportage had not yet been reduced to a dry question-and-answer routine, it was considered a literary genre.

Yaşar Kemal traveled all over Anatolia writing up what he saw in the form of reportages, thereby taking the first steps towards the novels that would follow. Those writings are not only one of the best ways of getting to know Yaşar Kemal, they also touch the reader as warm-hearted, human interest stories with a literary flair.

Yapı Kredi Yayınları is bringing out the reportages, the first of which was published on May 17, 1951, in a new book that will keep the great writer forever fresh. The book, entitled Sixty Years of Writing Reportage, is further enriched by 26 photographs of the author taken by master photographer Ara Güler.

“My reportages as are important to me as Mehmet My Hawk,” says Yaşar Kemal, emphasizing the significance of those early writings. “Can the reportage be considered literature? I’ve encountered that question a lot. What does it even mean? Why of course the reportage is literature. Its literary power it what distinguishes it from mere news.”